An example of one of my contemporary art projects exploring mirrors, reflections and illusions, here using a piece of cord that is reflected multiple times to give the impression of a closed circle.
This work consists of three mirrors arranged as a triangular box with the reflective surfaces facing inwards. The box is placed over a length of brightly coloured meandering paracord. The cord is laid so that the section that lies inside the triangular box is reflected on the box’s sides to give the illusion of forming a circle. The second photo shows the work from a different angle to show the structure.
Metamorphosis: reflection of a hand into an alien creature
Mirrors and hand. October 2016
Three mirrors forming the vertical sides of a triangular box turn a hand into an alien creature by multiple reflections. The hand is intruding into the box through an opening in the corner. The artwork is an exploration of how a familiar object (a hand) can be transformed into something completely alien purely by the use of simple mirrors. A study of the familiar becoming unfamiliar via a mundane agency. When the fingers of the hand move the effect is surprisingly disturbing (I’ll make a video of it when I can).
Colour Discontinuity 2. Optical illusion in mirror.
Mirror, coloured wooden rods. March 2017
A coloured rod reflected in a mirror, positioned so that the reflection in the mirror coincides with another rod of a different color on the other side of the mirror, creating an ambiguous optical effect.
A study in the perception and interpretation of ambiguous visual stimuli annd illusions. The study of reflections and their interpretation (especially illusions)is a common theme of my work. I have been fascinated by mirrors for most of my adult life, starting as a teenager in the late 1960s when I ground the parabolic mirror of an astronomical telescope that I constructed (It was an eight and a half inch mirror).
Colour Discontinuity 1. Coloured rods reflected in a mirror
Mirror, wooden rods, acrylic paint. July 2015
A coloured rod reflected in a mirror so that the reflection in the mirror coincides with a differently coloured rod on the other side of the mirror, creating a form of ambiguous optical illusion.
A study in perception, illusion and the interpretation of ambiguous visual stimuli. I’ve been interested in mirrors and reflections since I was a teenager in the late 1960s. My first mirror based work was done at that time. It started a science based endeavour rather than an artistic one – involving the construction of an astronomical telescope, including the grinding of its primary parabolic mirror.
These photos show one of my early artistic experiments using mirrors. My apologises for the quality of he images – they are quite old.
I think if I were give this work a name now I’d probably call it Sky Bridge or something similar, because it links the earth to the sky. The name Sky Mirror also comes to mind, but Anish Kapoor’s already used that.
The concept behind the mirror actually bears several similarities to Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror, in that it’s a concave mirror that reflects the sky, although Kapoor’s Sky Mirror is thirty times the size and cost about a million pounds more. I think I probably paid for this one from the money from my paper round. Anish Kapoor wasn’t yet a student at Hornsey College of Art at the time of these photos.
The mirror is an eight and a half inch parabolic mirror for a Newtonian reflecting telescope which I constructed as a teenager in the late 1960s. My ambition then was to become an astronomer, not an artist. I ground the parabolic surface of the mirror myself.
As you can see from the first two photos, I’ve positioned the mirror in front of a rubbish bin (of a type that was used in the 1970s) in the least aesthetically pleasing part of my parents’ garden.
The second photo, below, (which is massively underexposed in order to show the mirror, which would otherwise be just a disk of burnt-out white), shows the mirror propped up against the rubbish bin. You can see the sun and the sky reflected in the mirror. This is perhaps meant to show the contrast between the beauty and purity of the sky in contrast to some of the rubbish created by human society. It’s probably also meant to show that ultimately everything is connected, the beautiful and the ugly, the transcendent and the mundane.
The photo below shows the mirror on the ground amongst some trees. This is probably meant to show the link between the earth, the natural world and the sky, and by extension the cosmos.
